a. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to an electronic card adapted to display still or moving images of baseball players or other sports-related personalities or sporting events. The invention further relates to a stand or other structure arranged and constructed to operate in conjunction with said electronic baseball card to update information stored in the baseball card, and/or to perform other functions.
b. Description of the Prior Art
Printed baseball cards have been popular for many years, especially with adolescents. Similar cards have also been available for other sports, including basketball and football, as well as for other entertainment activities such as movies.
These cards usually consist of a rectangular piece of cardboard with a picture of a player on one side and statistical information related to the player, his team, the relevant sport and, so on, on the other side. Of course, the information provided on the card becomes obsolete very fast and there is no practical way to update the information on the card. Moreover, the picture on the printed card is static and usually not very attractive.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide an electronic card capable of showing an image stored in a memory on the card.
A further objective is to provide an electronic card with or without a stand which can be used to display static or dynamic images of sports players or any other subjects.
A further objective is to provide an assembly which includes an electronic baseball card and a stand capable of displaying and updating multimedia presentations.
Other objectives and advantages of the invention shall become apparent from the following description.
Briefly, an electronic baseball card constructed in accordance with this invention includes a thin flat body resembling a standard printed baseball card.
Disposed or incorporated into the body is a card memory storing imaging data and a display associated with the memory for showing one or more images. The body is also provided with a zone on which statistics and/or biographical data may be printed for one or more baseball players. In an alternate embodiment, a second display is used to show this information based on data stored in the memory. Power for the display and the memory is provided by a small battery also incorporated in the card. A switch may also be added to selectively activate the display. The card may be used to show a plurality of images, in which case each image is selected using the same or a different switch. The card is provided with an input data port that receives data for storage into the card memory.
A card adapter is also provided which may be used as a coupler to either update the data stored in the memory of the card, or to replace the data altogether with new data associated with a different player, team, etc. The card adapter includes its own memory and an external interface for receiving data from the outside world.
When the card is coupled to the card adapter, data received from the external interface and stored in the adapter memory can be transferred to the card memory. In an advantageous configuration, the card adapter is in the form of a stand with a frame shaped to receive the electronic baseball card. Preferably, the frame is structured so that the image shown in the display of the card can be seen through the frame. The stand may be provided with its own battery, display and other accessories such as one or more speakers. The speakers and the card may cooperate to play a multimedia presentation consisting of images and sounds.